


Whatever it Takes

by KaffeineJunkie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Beautiful Golden Fools, Canonical Incest, Depression, Eating Disorders, F/M, Fluffy Porn, House Lannister, Love, Minor Violence, POV Jaime Lannister, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Quests, Rating: NC17, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-24 19:23:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19730221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaffeineJunkie/pseuds/KaffeineJunkie
Summary: After the loss of her and Robert's "black-haired beauty," Cersei has fallen into a deep depression. Jaime has a plan to save her."People have been telling him all his life he never thinks, and this is the first time he cares, because if he doesn’t think of something, fast, something today, the woman he loves is going to die."





	1. A Queen Has One Duty

**Author's Note:**

> I've shamelessly combined pieces of show-canon with pieces of book-canon to best suit this story. 
> 
> Huge thanks to all the writers of Jaime/Cersei at ao3! I'm in absolute awe of you. Thanks also to those who've taken the time to read and/or comment on my first fic, "Kinder." I'm still new to this and I hope you enjoy this story.
> 
> The story will be four parts and I hope to have the next bits up later this week or next.

Once upon a time, a pair of golden twins had everything they could ever need to feel complete. They were safe, warm, loved, protected. They knew of nothing but each other. Then one of them was expelled and the other followed, because it was better to live together in hell than live alone in paradise.

When the worst thing that’s happened to you is being born, all experience is a bitter folly, a series of comedic disappointments, one after the other after the other. You pass your time fighting and fucking and laughing, because what does it matter? What does any of it matter? You don’t fear death because in your gut you know the best part of your existence will always be behind you, receding further in the distance with each passing day. You can try to find your way back to it (what else is there?)—fighting and fucking and laughing—but you will never succeed. 

He’s in the middle of breakfast when the raven arrives, the wax sigil pressed precisely into the center of the fold of the letter. Somehow, it occurs to Jaime, Tywin Lannister’s seal is the only one that gets to display its house color; the wolves and stags and fish all seem to use the same crimson candle to keep their secrets, as though paying taxes to the lion.

> _Jaime,_
> 
> _Rumors of the queen’s ill health have traveled far beyond the city. A fortnight is sufficient time for mourning. A queen has one duty; if she fails to fulfill it, the realm will see to it that a new queen is chosen, and they will be within their rights to do so. This ridiculous display of hers has gone on long enough. You will put an end to her theatrics. After she has gained weight, another child will give her something to live for, and Robert will have no cause to replace her. I trust you will do whatever it takes to secure our family’s future._
> 
> _Tywin Lannister_  
>  _Lord of Casterly Rock_  
>  _Shield of Lannisport_  
>  _Warden of the West_

  


That’s what sets Lannisters apart, after all. Not the gold. Not the rock. Not their beauty. The fact that they will do whatever it takes, when other families surrender to fate. 

He burns the letter because discussing what the king may or may not do, and whether those actions run parallel or contrary to the wishes of the Lannisters, is close enough to treason. It’s a good thing, too, because after the smoke clears, Lord Commander Selmy pokes his head in to tell Jaime his presence is requested in the small council meeting.

“What could they possibly want to discuss?” He’s sardonic, tries to make light of the situation, but something shifts in his center of gravity, heavy and low, dragging him down.

A fortnight may be sufficient for mourning, but it’s been three months since Cersei lost her firstborn son, three months since she’s allowed anyone to visit her other than her brother, her handmaidens, and Pycelle, the latter undoubtedly against her will. Jaime comes to see her every three or four days, whenever he’s not required elsewhere, and every evening is the same. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t acknowledge him in any way. Often, she lies in bed, her eyes closed, her body damp with sweat where her nightgown sticks to her. Occasionally she stands in her solar looking in the distance, at something very far away. 

Her hair is beginning to fall out.

He noticed a brush on the table by the looking glass, fist-sized clumps tangled within. She lifted her gown, all diaphanous silk, to scratch at her belly, once; did she think she was alone, that he’d already gone? The movement revealed that her once-taut stomach has lost its firmness, and it’s not because she’s birthed and lost a child. She’s thinner than ever before; all sharp ridges and protruding bones.

At first, Jaime sang songs to earn her attention, hoping to make her smile; his voice isn’t _terrible_ and he has a good memory for lyrics. Being dyslexic it’s easier for him to recall words when they belong to a melody rather than a scroll. His private way of memorizing information his father was so insistent he learn—local history, maps, sigils, and war strategy—was to tie words and phrases to a tune in his mind.

When the songs didn’t amuse her, he sat with her and talked about his favorite memories of Casterly Rock. It’s difficult to think of the ocean and not remember all the times they furtively held hands walking along the sand, all the times they succumbed to stolen kisses as the waves crashed nearby. 

When his memories failed to rouse any response from Cersei, he knelt in front of her, took her hands—pale, wilted lilies—in his, and implored her to speak to him, to rage or beat at his chest, to scream and kick, get through the anger and pain, but she continued to look past him, no expression on her face.

He knows she’s not eating because his appetite has fallen sharply as well. He knows she’s not sleeping because he hasn’t had more than a four-hour stretch the past several weeks, either. He knows she’s full of bile because he, too, spends every waking thought contemplating different ways to make the king die.

“Ser Ilyn has orders to hold her down this afternoon,” the Lord Commander remarks quietly, his eyes sympathetic. 

Jaime wonders if Ser Barristan still pictures him as a squire, a pup playing at knighthood.

“It will make no difference. She’ll vomit it back up the first moment she’s alone,” Jaime replies. He knows this because it’s what he would do in her place.  


“For leeching, not sustenance,” Barristan clarifies and Jaime’s jaw clenches. “To balance the bad humours.”

People have been telling him he never thinks all his life, all twenty years of it, and at twenty years he figures his life is more than half over. He hopes so, anyway. If he makes it to thirty, he’ll be shocked and if he makes it to forty, he’ll be angry, because that’s too long to pay the price of a decision he made at fifteen to be near her always. 

What good is being near her always when he can’t comfort her, can’t sleep beside her, can’t hold her, can’t stop other men from holding her? And by that he means holding her _down_. Men have been holding her down longer than they’ve been telling Jaime he never thinks. They hold her down to make their babies, hold her down when the baby comes, hold her down when the baby dies, hold her down when the lifeless bundle is taken away to decay underground in a crypt she doesn’t want in a city she despises. 

Now they hold her down to force food inside her, and today they’ll begin holding her down to bleed her, marring and marking her skin, the pristine veneer encasing a sun that grows dimmer by the hour.

People have been telling him all his life he never thinks, and this is the first time he cares, because if he doesn’t think of something, fast, something _today_ , the woman he loves is going to die. 

*

The meeting’s been droning on for an hour when Robert staggers in, his face pink and sweaty. All eyes dart toward him, and silence coats the room. His footsteps are heavy, his demeanor fierce. He has a goblet in his hand, sloshing and spilling over the side, and his beard looks sticky and matted with drink.

He points a finger at Jaime, incensed. He tells Jaime things Jaime already knows.

“Your sister refuses to eat. She refuses to drink. She refuses to speak. When she does speak, it’s to declare that she will not eat.”

“Steps have been taken to make her eat, your grace, but she isn’t gaining weight, yet,” Varys tells Robert.

“Her gowns no longer fit, and her ribs poke out. She looks like a beaten horse,” Robert growls.

“I imagine she feels like one,” Jaime says.

“Why is the Kingslayer here?” Robert shouts. “And why did I ever allow someone called the _Kingslayer_ to remain in my protective guard?"

“You're the one who gave me that name,” Jaime reminds him curtly. _Savior of the City would have been more accurate. Half a million people get to continue their pointless, miserable lives, rutting and farting and whoring because of me._

Jon Arryn explains that Jaime may have some insight in regard to Cersei. 

Robert ignores this. “You know what she told me? When she finally deigned to speak to her royal husband? ‘Everything in this rancid, stinking city tastes like a rat’s arsehole except for the fish, which tastes like a _burned_ rat’s arsehole,’ so I had Ser Ilyn douse her fish in fire-spice and shove it down her throat, see if that would liven up the flavor for her. The harvest is late this year, what would she have me do, plant my own bloody garden in the Red Keep? Each month she denies me makes a mockery of my ability to produce an heir. We’ve tried everything.”

Robert slumps in his seat. His eyes shine with emotion, but Jaime refuses— _refuses_ —to pity him. 

_Have you tried not shitting where you eat?_ Jaime thinks. _Have you tried asking her what she’s feeling, what she needs?_

He says the last part out loud, only to be met with Robert’s bellowing, inebriated laughter. He practically howls his next sentence: “The Kingslayer wants me to ask the queen how she’s _feeling_.”

“Her feelings are irrelevant. She needs to do her duty,” says Stannis Baratheon. 

_Where’d that dour fucker come from?_

Jaime holds his tongue when Robert continues his diatribe about Jaime’s lack of qualifications. 

“A knight in the kingsguard is giving me advice about _women_. Should I give advice about celibacy, next?”

Jon Arryn’s weak smile boils Jaime’s blood, but still he says nothing. 

Robert slams his meaty fist on the table. His knuckles are bruised and torn from banging them bloody against the wall on a regular basis. He probably inadvertently re-opens them lifting his ale. Jaime notices other wounds, other scabs and bloody tendrils along Robert’s neck and arms. Cersei had thrashed and scratched at Robert like a hellcat when they ripped her son from her arms, and it seems she hasn’t stopped since. The gouges are the only remaining proof they ever had a child. 

The thin red trails on Robert’s body remind Jaime of something, something important, a time in his past with Cersei, but just as quickly, he’s lost it again.

“I may not know much about women,” Jaime concedes, “but I do know my sister.” _Better than anyone in this room. Better than anyone in this **world**. I held her hand when the babe wrenched its way out of her; where were you, Stag?_

“A few kind words may help more than you expect,” he continues. “If nothing else, it’ll shock her, and that’s better than the way things are going now.”

Robert appears to give this some thought. “Other than coddling her, do you have any _real_ advice?”

“Women lose babies. Some of them die in childbirth. A lot of them. Don’t you think it might frighten her, the idea of…” _Going through that again_ , he thinks. _Knowing it might be all for nothing. Again._

Robert shakes his head. “How do we get her to eat? How do we get her healthy? She was too skinny _before_ I got her with child. No heft to her, even at nine moons. She looked like someone had strapped a harvest-day pumpkin to her belly. No wonder the babe came out weak with fever, she didn’t give him enough strength to begin with.” 

Horribly, Robert begins to shake, though whether it’s with anger or sadness, Jaime cannot say. He delivers his last line to Jaime alone: “Her vanity is what killed my son, and if she kills another one…”

It’s a direct threat. To his family, his house, his sister’s life. Robert’s eyes are red, swollen with tears, his words delivered with resignation and grief, but it’s a threat, nonetheless.

“Anyway,” he gruffs, “she might listen to you. Go ahead, put the fear of Tywin into her. Oh yes, I know about the letter.”

“If I visit her, it won’t be to hold her down, and it won’t be to scare her,” Jaime replies, and stands up to retrieve his sword from where they sequestered it at the meeting’s start. As though that would have stopped him from killing everyone in the room.

“We’ll wait for you here,” Jon Arryn calls after him.


	2. A Knight Without a Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the loss of her and Robert's "black-haired beauty," Cersei has fallen into a deep depression. Jaime has a plan to save her.
> 
> "A tiny, hopeless part of him wants her to say, 'Take me away from here, take us somewhere we can live as we were meant to, unashamed, in the light.' "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've combined pieces of show-canon with pieces of book-canon to suit my purposes, mwah ha ha.
> 
> The story will be four chapters. The first two are mainly angst. The second two (up later this week or next) will have all the smutty smut-smut because I mean, come on, it's Cersei and Jaime :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy the continuation, and thank you for reading! I adore the C/J works I've read here, which have greatly inspired me.

Cersei’s brush remains tangled with clumps of hair. Her goblet is empty of wine. She lies prone on her bed, half-covered by a thin, crimson sheet. In contrast, her skin looks wan, paler than ever.

Jaime is jealous of the scratches she left on Robert. He’d give anything to feel the sting of her palm against his cheek, her nails on his wrist, her teeth on his shoulder. Give anything to get a reaction from her, know that she’s still reachable.

“It’s me,” he says, climbing into bed behind her. It’s a bold move, dangerous, but these are dangerous times and he’s going to do _whatever it takes_ isn’t he, lord father? Even still, she makes no sound or movement. 

He enfolds her in his arms as if to tether her to the world. 

“Did Father ever drag you to a small council meeting?” he begins amiably. “Probably not. Let me assure you you’re not missing anything, unless being stabbed in the ear with a quill over and over until it hits _brain_ appeals to you. 

“I was ordered to attend my first one today, not to guard anyone but sit at the table. Shall I tell you about it? Let’s see, who was there… droopy old Jon Arryn of course—can you imagine if I’d married Lysa Tully? She’s repugnant, bug-eyed, better him than me—Lord Cock Face,” (their name for Varys), “that putrid cunt Pycelle… You want to know what Pycelle said? He said you’ve lost so much weight you’re no longer bleeding every month. Now, I’m no maester, but apparently that means you can’t get pregnant. I always thought if your moon’s blood ceased that meant you _were_ pregnant—how many times did we worry about that? Apparently, we needn’t have wasted our energy—but it works the other way, too. You can’t become pregnant until your body recovers. 

“Oh! And then Robert made an appearance! Varys nearly fell out of his chair in shock. He rambled on for a quarter of an hour, it was incredibly tedious, and the worst part is, it’s still going on. I’ve been sent in here to convince you to eat. They’re waiting for me report to back about my progress, but I have a better idea: why don’t I stay here instead, with you? Can I burrow under the sheets and hide?”

He nuzzles the back of her neck with his nose, playfully. “Please don’t make me go back to the small council meeting, Cersei. Take pity on me.”

He strokes his fingers through her hair. The once silky, lustrous strands—her crowning glory, before ever becoming queen—have gone rough, straw-like, thin and brittle, and tear easily from her scalp. He closes his eyes in regret and extricates his hand as delicately as possible.

No response. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t swat at him, doesn’t turn to face him.

He sighs, steeling himself to play a new game. The object is to infuriate and provoke her, force her to fight back. _Whatever it takes._ His father’s words have become his mantra.

“The other choice, I suppose, is that I bring you back with me,” he murmurs roughly in her ear, his hands cresting the ridge of her, fingers trailing a path along her shoulder and arm and waist and hip. “I could carry you into the meeting, strip off your nightgown and lay you out on the table like a feast, in front of gods and men and anyone else who wanders in. Would you like that? An audience before we go? I’ll spread your legs, show them all the ways we love each other, and if anyone interferes, I’ll cut them in half where they stand, and then I’ll fuck you in half... make you come until you sob... until it hurts to stop. Decorate your pretty tits with my icing, flip you onto your stomach and start again. Shall we do that?”

She doesn’t flinch or shiver. Gives no indication she’s heard him, much less that the words he’s chosen so carefully have had the intended effect. 

He can’t take her complacency, the silence she’s been pouring over him for months. As though he’s not there, he doesn’t exist, he’s never existed, as though they don’t share a heart, share a _life_ , as though he’s never given up everything—everything!—for her.

(He’d do it all again, the same way, if given the chance.)

He strokes her arm, which is looking thin and slight. Her skin is pallid, translucent, her veins a contrasting map of raised blue trails. A fine coating of hair sprouts from the puckered gooseflesh, trying futilely to keep her warm now that she’s starving herself. 

He scowls. “Have you grown _fur_ since I last saw you?”

Gods be good, he still wants her. His body responds instinctually to her nearness, the iron bar between his legs flexing and pressing into the globes of her ass. “How embarrassing for me,” he says. “You look dreadful, you smell like sour milk. Your guards said you didn’t want visitors. I thought, ‘She doesn’t mean me, she only means everyone else, but not me, because I always find a way inside, don’t I?’ _I always find a way inside._ ” He pushes back and forth, circling his hips and rubbing his cock against her.

That’s always been their thing; she objects, he’s objectionable, and then they devour each other. She’ll slap him maybe, then kiss him, shove her tongue in his mouth, push him against the wall and in the next breath pull him back to her, her hands fierce and strong in his hair, dictating his movements.

It’s unfathomable that she would allow this, allow him to speak to her this way, allow him to risk their lives by crawling into bed with her in the middle of the day and rut against her, with the small council waiting on him.

“I guess it’s settled then. Let’s give your husband and his group of idiots a good show.” He lifts her, pretends he’ll go through with all the things he’s threatened to do, and still she does not stir, doesn’t murmur a single protest. 

His manhood shrinks and retreats at the disheartening truth. She doesn’t care if she lives or dies. 

“Cersei,” he pleads, crushing her in his arms. “If you ever, ever loved me, _say something_.”

Her head wobbles, swiveling to face him at last. Bruises under her eyes, sockets hollow, lips cracked. 

“Is that why you’re here?” her voice is toneless, flat, slurred. “To assure me that even though I disgust you now, you’d still fuck me? Thank the gods: _Jaime_ will still _fuck me_. I’m so very touched, I might cry.” Her words blur, slow and thick, drifting into and out of one another, threading and merging. It takes him a moment to understand what she’s said, because it’s blindingly obvious to him now; she’s drowning in milk of the poppy. Probably has been for weeks.

Pulse racing, throat dry, he cuddles her against him, gently presses her face into his chest, rests his chin on the top of her head so she won’t see the tears stinging his eyes, won’t see the dread that’s crawled inside him and wrapped itself around his heart. She goes limp, hands falling to her sides, and he yearns to kiss her back to life.

“Does Robert plan to keep you weak and drugged for the duration of his reign?” he whispers, voice caught, his throat clogged with emotions he doesn’t dare express because he needs to be strong for her. 

They’ve broken her. They’ve broken his beautiful sister.

Jaime feels a candle go out inside him.

He decides to take his own advice, shift back to kindness. “Tell me what you need, tell me what you want, and I’ll make it happen,” he swears.

A tiny, hopeless part of him wants her to say, “Take me away from here, take us somewhere we can live as we were meant to, unashamed, in the light.”

“He should have let me nurse him, I could have brought him back,” Cersei says, looking at the ceiling, her eyes soft and wet, her words hard to understand but full of conviction. She believes what’s she saying, believes it more than she believes in Jaime lying there beside her and swearing to help her, and it terrifies Jaime because if he can’t get her away from this line of thinking and into some semblance of reality, there’ll be no reaching her. This moment will be lost, all his progress lost, and he may not get another opportunity.

“If I’d been allowed to hold him and nurse him, I could have brought him back to life,” she insists. Tears coarse down her cheeks and he gently thumbs them away. Her eyes close and she’s drifting, she’s leaving him. 

He lightly grips her shoulders, tries to make her look at him.

“What’s done is done,” he says quietly. “What do you need _now_? What can I do for you _now_?”

She prefers to tell him what she doesn’t want, what she won’t bear. 

“I won’t have his children. Not anymore. I won’t bear his weight on top of me, I won’t bear his weight _inside_ me, growing there, I won’t bear it, Jaime. I’d rather waste away right here in this room and let him count my bones.”

“I’ll take you to the crypt,” he offers desperately, “maybe that will—”

“No!” A small, anguished sound, full of tears, glistening. “He’s rotting, I know he is, I can _feel_ it. Just like with Mother. When I sleep, he comes to me, his flesh blackening and falling off, and I can’t reach him to swaddle him or feed him or save him.”

“Shh, shh, I’m sorry I said that,” he strokes her face, pats her hair. “We don’t have to go. And you don’t have to give him any more babies, I’ll make sure of that. But listen to me, Cersei, it’s not over. You need to live. Live for me, live for _us_ —”

“Why? So we can see each other an hour here, an hour there, once a fortnight, in shadow?” 

“Live for us,” he promises her, “and _I’ll_ give you a baby.” 

She stares at him, unmoving. But something’s shifted in her expression; she’s curious. 

“If you get stronger,” he continues, “if you _eat_ , I’ll give you a perfect, healthy, golden baby boy, I promise you. We’ll start new. It will live because it will be _ours_.” 

Above her bodice, thin stripes of red indicate where she’s clawed at her skin. Milk of the poppy is notorious for causing a sensation of itching where none exists. The shape of the lines, the crescent gouges, match the ones on Robert’s neck, the ones that remind Jaime of something else, something from days long past, when he could divide the world into Cersei and Not Cersei and make all his decisions accordingly. It’s not so simple anymore, he knows, but it _could_ be. 

And suddenly the red lines on Robert’s neck and the red lines on Cersei’s collarbone and the tops of her breasts combine to form the memory that’s been eluding him. 

He knows what to do. 

“Haven’t I always been your cloak?” he whispers into her hair. “Your shining knight? Haven’t I always protected you? It’s been too long since I’ve proved my devotion. A knight without a quest is no knight. I’m going to bring you something that tastes of summer, something worthy of a queen, that will fill your senses and awaken you from this dream. It’s only a dream, Cersei, and I will wake you from it. But you have to do one thing for me. You have to stay alive. You have to continue breathing, and yes, eating that tasteless garbage that tastes like a rat’s arsehole just a little while longer.” 

He’s hoping that last bit might coax a smile from her, or a raised eyebrow. 

Nothing. 

Her pulse is so slow. He feels it slowing down, her wrist flopping in his grip. Her gaze is vacant again; has she absorbed any of the conversation? Maybe the last twenty minutes are already gone for her. 

“Tell me you’ll eat. Tell me you’ll wait for my return,” he urges. “I won’t be long. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Will you do that for me?” 

It feels like a lifetime later when she turns her hand, that bent, broken lily, and squeezes his own hand in affirmation. She’s used the last of her remaining strength to do so. He can feel it drain from her. 

He settles her back in her bed as she falls into a poppy-induced dreamscape, presses his lips to her forehead, and pulls the sheets over her body. Almost stumbles in his haste to leave, to get back to the small council. 

Out of breath, having taken the stairs two at a time, he barges into the room. “I can fix this, but I’ll need time.” He turns to Robert, genuflecting. Clears his throat. “Your Grace, may I have leave to go to Highgarden?” 

Robert acquiesces with a wave of his hand. 

“And for fuck’s sake, don’t give her any more milk of the poppy,” Jaime scowls over his shoulder as he exits. 


	3. Half-Rotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the loss of her and Robert's "black-haired beauty," Cersei has fallen into a deep depression. Jaime has a plan to save her.
> 
> "He could still picture Cersei’s teeth biting into the first plum. She bit so hard the juice dripped down her chin. He pinned her wrists to her sides (like trying to hold sunshine), bent his head and licked the errant drops with a swipe of his tongue."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Quick reminder, I've combined elements of show-canon with elements of book-canon to suit my purposes, so YMMV when it comes to timelines / ages / events. 
> 
> The story will conclude in chapter four, hopefully posted sometime next week. The first two chapters are mainly angst. The second two are full of smutty goodness because that is the Cersei and Jaime I love most ;)
> 
> I hope you enjoy chapter three, and thanks so much for reading and commenting! I'm full-on bonkers for the C/J fics I've read here, and this is my little attempt to pay it back if possible.

This is how you save your family. This is how you save your house.

By going to Highgarden in search of a plum.

Not just any plum—a fireplum, so ripe and juicy and tart that it will bring Cersei back to life, remind her of better times, and prove to her the future is still hers for the taking.

The Rose Road is relatively peaceful. It is a time of peace, after all. The Iron Islands are far away, and Robert has managed to suppress every other pointless uprising that’s occurred since he was crowned. Jaime is most concerned about thieves and bandits (likely in Bitterbridge), not any sort of organized brigade, but the journey back will be a different story, when he’s bogged down with an entire orchard, gods willing.

What Jaime had previously deemed useless information about crop cycles, false summers and long winters (or was it false winters and long summers?) drummed into his head by Tywin Lannister suddenly takes on new importance.

The distance to Highgarden is twice that of Harrenhal, but not any farther than Casterly Rock would be, and at least he doesn’t have to navigate Blackwater Rush. Without companions to slow him down he needn’t take shelter every night, either. He’ll sleep on his horse when possible, cut down anyone who stands in his way, and make the roundtrip journey in nine to twelve days, he estimates.

It’s a tall order for a single fruit, but Jaime believes this particular plum is up to the task of restoring the queen. Oh, he’ll get other fruit as well, wagons full of them, to set at her feet. Everything King’s Landing doesn’t have, every succulent, fresh, dripping melon, peach, and berry he can find. Bouquets of golden roses to decorate her solar, spread light and fragrance through the dust motes in the air, transform her surroundings speck by speck till nothing remains of the stale, morose months Robert stole from her.

The first four nights of his journey, he prays to dream of Cersei, and on the fifth night, his prayer is answered. It’s his favorite dream, the one that takes place at the Inn on Eel Alley. In his dream, as in real life, she’s relentless. He envisions it behind his eyelids when he fists his cock the next morning, but when he comes in thick streams onto the ground, he’s thinking of a different time, earlier, at the Rock.

It’s the reason he’s on this quest, after all; the markings on Robert’s neck and arms and Cersei’s chest had reminded him of a rare holiday spent in the family home. He’d been in Lannisport with Arthur Dayne and requested a week’s reprieve at the new year to see his siblings. Cersei was at Casterly Rock “recuperating / increasing her value and mystique” after their lord father had turned down another proposal for her hand.

Absent himself, Tywin Lannister had arranged for plums, apricots, pears, summerwine, spiced nuts, honeycake, and other delicacies to be sent to Casterly Rock. Cersei poured Tyrion a cup of wine; he was all of six, which wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem—Jaime was seven at his first sip—except that afterward, she danced their younger brother around the room, swinging him almost violently. So besotted was Tyrion with Cersei’s abrupt affection, he demanded to be spun again and again, until he got sick all over his tunic and was taken up to bed.

Which was the point, after all; she’d wanted to be alone with Jaime and that was the fastest way to accomplish it. Jaime spent half his waking hours keeping Tyrion safe from Cersei, but at the same time, he was pleased when her schemes worked. Still, he’d have used a different method; a new toy or book, for example. Tyrion may have been eight years younger, but he was already a more avid reader.

Tyrion had once asked him about Cersei, “How can someone so mean be so beautiful?” but for Jaime that felt like entirely the wrong question. Why shouldn’t someone beautiful get to be mean? Ugly people were mean all the time! At least Cersei was magnificent to look at while she went about her business. The Seven themselves seemed to fight over who got to claim and perfect her, and why not? The Lannisters were the best family and the best house. Only Jaime was good enough for Cersei and only Cersei was good enough for Jaime; voluntarily spending time with anyone else was laughable. He reveled in her nearness, the way the air rearranged itself to accommodate her every thought and desire. And to think, only Jaime—Jaime alone!—got to touch her, grip her hair, kiss her lips, her throat, the swell of her breasts. She was his counterpart, and if that meant his little brother needed to be elsewhere so they could drown in each other, so be it.

Besides, Cersei had her reasons for behaving the way she did. Her actions were never random. People might disagree with her, certainly, but she did _have_ reasons, and no one outside the family had any right to question them or imply they weren’t valid. As a matter of fact, that went _double_ for inside the family. Infighting was uncouth, Father said, and revealed an utter lack of control.

With Tyrion dispatched, the twins were alone at last and went through the baskets of sweets with breathless anticipation. Side by side at the table so their limbs touched, Jaime and Cersei traded items and argued over which to eat first. Neither had tried fireplums before, so those quickly rose to the top of the list. These ones had skins so dark red they looked black, and inside, the pulpy flesh shimmered like blood, ripe to the point of bursting.

A lot of their first times blurred together, overlapping, because they’d started kissing and touching each other before they ever thought to keep track of such things. Discrete acts and events were meaningless when you weren’t an individual and never had been, but part of a shared whole. When had they first kissed? Impossible to say.

When had they first _tasted_ each other? _That_ memory was worth savoring, revisiting.

He could still picture Cersei’s teeth biting into the first plum. She bit so hard the juice dripped down her chin. He pinned her wrists to her sides (like trying to hold sunshine), bent his head and licked the errant drops with a swipe of his tongue. Then he licked one long line from the curve of her shoulder up along the delicate column of her throat, along her jawline and across her chin, finishing with her mouth and pushing his tongue against hers so they could sample the fruit together, see if it tasted differently on the other one’s tongue, mouth, lips, corners, skin.

Giggling, they stole off to Jaime’s bedchamber with two more of the plums to play with.

She wanted him to lick it off her pulse points, so he sliced a second plum—there were four—and crushed it in his fist so the juice poured out, and then squeezed the sticky red drops everywhere she might have dabbed perfume: on her neck, the sloping crook of her inner elbow, between her breasts, the flat of her pale, quivering stomach. Jaime eagerly lapped up each streak, each drop, each sticky trail as it dried, _faster_ , she urged him, _catch it before it_ —she shivered and moaned against his lips, he’d never heard her make sounds like that—and finally she pulled his head up so their mouths met again, both pairs of lips plump and dewy-soft from the plums.

They kissed until they had no sense of identity, no sense of other, no sense of separateness, no sense of inhabiting different bodies. They kissed slow and deep, fully entwined, knowing exactly when to change pressure and speed, because they were the same, and they proved it by consecrating their love this way.

That’s how it felt to Jaime, anyway.

When they pulled away from each other minutes (hours...?) later, matching green eyes half-lidded, palms and fingertips sticky, mouths wet and spent, they moved as one to remove Cersei’s gown. She left her smallclothes on, but Jaime saw a dew drop of arousal, the barest wet spot, along the thin material between her legs. His throat hurt looking at it. He wanted to rub his finger there and see if the dark spot would grow larger.

Instead, he smeared the remaining lump of fruit across his sister’s back, over her spine, pushing it in like a sponge, the same way he scrubbed her back clean in the bath, only this time he made a mess of her, down each bump and ridge of her spine, till she squirmed and laughed, then he followed that path with his tongue. When she was licked clean, he moved her onto her back. She gasped and arched toward him, arms limp around his neck. Her nipples rose, tightening, and he knew just what to do.

He discarded the mashed plum, and with his knife he gouged out a circle in the third plum. Then he placed the hole he'd made over her nipple, encasing it, and slowly rotated the plum.

When he took the plum away, her nipple was hardened like a thimble, but velvet-soft and glistening, and he sucked and sucked on it until she cried out and bucked her hips.

That night they crept into the kitchen for the last, precious plum. Cersei had promised to lick it off Jaime, she didn’t specify where, but he knew she didn’t have the patience for a full-body massage. The thought excited him beyond reason because it meant she might put her mouth on his—

“Where is the basket of plums Father sent us?” Cersei demanded of the kitchen servant.

The fourth plum was gone. Jaime had counted them, and Cersei had counted them—they knew there had been four.

The kitchen servant had taken it for her daughter. She attempted to explain, her eyes fearful, her words rapid and apologetic. “We thought you’d finished with them, it was the last one, gone half-rotten—”

Cersei called for her guards and ordered the servant whipped—said if she didn’t stop lying, she’d have the daughter whipped instead.

“It was mine,” Cersei kept repeating. “And it wasn’t half-rotten, it was perfect.”

When the servant’s back had been slashed to ribbons, it reminded Jaime of the tendrils of juice he’d spent the afternoon licking off Cersei. But where the plum’s secretions had thinned out to a pale pink, the lines on the servant women were viscous, dark red streaks, cleaved to torn skin. The punishment should have been over, it was out of proportion to the crime, and the servant was heaving great gasps in an attempt not to weep, but it wasn’t enough for Cersei.

“I’m afraid you’re only ‘half-rotten’,” she said scathingly, and ordered a second round. “The first time was for stealing from me. The second time is for stealing from _Jaime_.”

Astonished, the servant blurted out, “You said it was yours, how could it also be Jaime’s?”

“Because we share everything!” Cersei screeched.

Nothing set Cersei off like being contradicted. Jaime almost admired the servant in that moment.

“I think you’ve made your point,” Jaime remarked, a casual hand on her shoulder. He didn’t like being implicated in the second whipping, being made the reason for it. Her own reasons were enough.

“With Father gone, I’m the oldest, which means I’m in charge,” she explained to him in the hall, her voice soft and reasonable again, as though she had nothing to do with the beating, as though it were out of her hands rather than commanded by her. Grunts of pain emanated from the kitchen, where’d they left her guards to their task. “If they get away with one thing, they’ll try worse and worse things.” She twined their fingers together, her thumb a delicate stroke against his palm. “We can’t ever show weakness, Jaime. They’re testing me, testing _us_ , and we mustn’t waver.”

On the Rose Road now, far removed from those days and moving at a decent trot astride his horse, Jaime decides not to dwell on that portion of the memory. With Cersei, there was always a point at which you had to stop remembering or you might see something that turned your stomach a little. Then again, most of his memories were like that. If you followed any of them too long, they curdled around the edges.

Example: welcomed into the Kingsguard at Harrenhal, only to be sent away by Aerys and refused entry into the tourney. Welcomed into the Kingsguard to be near her always, only to watch helplessly as Father whisked Cersei back to Casterly Rock in a storm of anger and broken pride, the pieces sharp as dragonglass.

Was it the plum juice he’d been reminded of when he saw the wounds on Robert’s neck and arm, the scattered scrapes on Cersei’s skin, or was it the whipping that followed? Perhaps the two events converged in his mind, impossible to separate, with no beginning and no ending.

That’s why he loves Cersei so much, he supposes; there is no before or after, no beginning or end, and he would give her a hundred servants to whip if it would shake her from her catatonic state, drifting in and out of consciousness. He hopes she conflates the plum with the whipping as well, so it will remind her how much power she has, how much control she wields over others: the difference between life and death, pain and pleasure. 

In homage to her, he whips his horse and takes off harder, faster.


	4. Golden Days, Silver Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the loss of her and Robert's "black-haired beauty," Cersei has fallen into a deep depression. Jaime has a plan to save her.
> 
> But first they have to find a moment alone.
> 
> Or perhaps an entire week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm being honest, the previous three chapters were only an excuse to write this one! Yup, it's time for PWP. 
> 
> Cersei/Jaime are so inherently, tragically kinky, the only way to make them more scandalous, IMO, is to let them have a lot of fluffy, happy sex. Apparently I needed to get this out of my system.
> 
> Thanks for letting me play in the C/J sandbox. Comments are love, and I hope you enjoy the conclusion!

Upon his return, Jaime finds his sister much improved. His chest tightens with relief as he watches her from the doorway.

She’s still too thin, perhaps; still bruises a bit easily, but the color has returned to her cheeks. Her eyes are sharp and focused, the lilt of her voice strong. She kept up her end of the bargain. Another fortnight of nourishing food and rest and she’ll be herself again, he thinks.

She’s having a simple dinner of nutbread, cheese, and wine, but she pushes her plate aside and stands to greet Jaime the instant she sees him. A servant refills her wine and a second one picks up the plate, but Jaime motions for them to leave it. Two others bustle about the room, but she looks at Jaime as though he is the only person she can see.

“Where have you been?” she asks, wringing her hands. “I lost track of the days…”

He rushes to her side, but, mindful of prying eyes, stops short of touching her. It’s agony to be near her but not allowed to kiss her, pull her into his arms, hold her against him.

“I brought you fruit from Highgarden, every kind they have. They’re unloading it now, we can send for it whenever you like, but I wanted to show you the best one first.” He tosses his sack to the floor and holds one of the fireplums behind his back.

“Oh? What is it?” She reaches for his arm, but he grins and evades her, moving out of reach. These little pleasures are few and far between for them; no one could blame him for drawing it out.

She tilts her head. “Peaches?”

“No.”

“Melons?”

“No.”

“Berries?” 

He’s smiling now, absurdly proud.

“Not fireplums,” she says. “You can’t have found those, we haven’t had them since we were…”

He presents it to her with a flourish.

“…children,” she finishes, eyes going wide at the sight of it. “Jaime!”

She rises on her tiptoes and throws her arms around his neck. Sounds of surprise and delight fill his ears as she peppers his cheeks and forehead with kisses, the way any sister might do for a brother who’s returned with such a bounty.

His lips feel the lack of contact. No, they _burn_ with it. Can he never, ever have a moment alone with her?

Cersei’s handmaiden stares at the fireplum, her longing for it plain to see. A single one would cost her family a month’s wages and Cersei has _bags_ of them.

“I require a private audience with my brother,” Cersei murmurs, ushering everyone toward the door. “See that we’re not disturbed.”

“Is the king on a hunting trip, your grace?” the handmaid asks. The question is delivered without guile, but Cersei has gone stock still.

Jaime’s eyes flick to his sister’s.

For a moment, neither twin draws breath.

Then, in the softest, most pleasant voice imaginable, Cersei says, “You’ve noticed a pattern, have you?”

If he didn’t see the agitated way her fingers spark against each other—it’s always been her tell—Jaime would think her the gentlest, most charming woman who ever lived.

The handmaid senses _something_ , at least, because she lowers her gaze deferentially. “Oh, I—I didn’t mean—I misspoke, your grace.”

“It’s quite alright,” Cersei says. She approaches the maid and waits until the young woman dares to look up again. “Tell me, have you ever tried a fireplum? Unless you have, you can’t _imagine_ how luscious they are.” She plucks Jaime’s gift from his hand and offers it, palm open, supplicating.

He knows she’s chosen her movements deliberately, in an attempt to prove she doesn’t care one way or another about the plum Jaime selected for her, but it irritates him, nonetheless. How many days has he anticipated her reaction, only to have it over and done with in a blink?

The servant is stunned by Cersei’s generosity, and thanks Cersei profusely before exiting with the prize, unaware her time in the Red Keep has come to an end.

Jaime doesn’t spare her a single thought of sympathy; his reunion with Cersei has been cut short and it may very well be _weeks_ before they can resume it.

They lock eyes again, green on green, gold flecks shimmering in the candlelight. Her frustration mirrors his own, at least, but it’s small consolation as he exits the room without her.

*

Four nights later, Jaime is invited to dine with Cersei and Robert. Bookended by Lannisters, the king is already in his cups, which explains why he clasps Jaime on the back with a gruff word of thanks for lifting the queen’s spirits with the food he brought back from Highgarden.

Not even Cersei has thanked him in so many words, though he supposes she’ll find a different way of making her gratitude known. Eventually. 

“Where have all your ladies-in-waiting gone?” Jaime asks, taking the seat across from Cersei. They’re curiously unencumbered by witnesses to their meal.

“I’m afraid I had to dismiss them all for lack of discretion,” Cersei replies, feigning regret for Robert’s ears. “I’ll have new ones by the time Robert returns from Felwood.”

Jaime speaks with studied nonchalance. “Felwood?”

“For the tournament! We leave tomorrow,” Robert tells him. “My wife seems to think you’re too tired from your life-or-death fruit-picking excursion to accompany us, but I said you’d welcome the chance to unhorse a cunt from Blackhaven.”

Jaime takes great pains never to glance at Cersei when he speaks.

“I wonder if I wouldn’t be more use here,” he answers vaguely. “The decision is yours, of course. If you _want_ me there--”

“It’s not what _I_ want, it’s…Bloody hell, everyone’s gone soft around me,” Robert complains. “If I’d known sitting the iron throne meant no more _enjoying_ my life, no more getting my blood up, I’d have gone _home_ after the Trident. Tourneys are the only sport left to me!”

Jaime waits an appropriate amount of time, eating and talking of other matters, before broaching the subject again. “Will my sister be accompanying you? To the tournament.”

He knows it chafes Cersei’s pride that he’s asking about her as though she’s not in the room, but he also knows she’s smart enough to realize it’s a ploy.

Robert takes a long pull of his drink. “Tywin Lannister” (he spits the word like it’s a rotten piece of meat stuck in his craw) “thinks it would boost morale if she’s out and about to be gaped at. Put to rest any rumors of her weak constitution.”

Jaime nods. “I see.”

“I always thought a king makes up his own mind,” Cersei remarks, addressing Jaime. Her tone is just this side of mocking. “I had no idea Father was so integral to his decision-making process.”

Robert glares at her and Jaime almost laughs.

“Stay home for all I care,” the king growls, taking the bait. “But tell your bloody father yourself.”

When Robert leaves to use the privy, Cersei and Jaime instantly lean toward each other.

“Fireplum was the most insipid,” Cersei explains rapidly, in regard to her missing handmaiden. “So if _she_ noticed our… inclinations, the others did, too.” She’d wanted the girl’s tongue out (actually, she’d wanted her “tentacle-fucked in an Iron Islands whorehouse until she learned to keep her holes shut”) but agreed that a dressmaker’s shop up north, in some hideous-sounding place called Mole’s Town, would suffice.

In a heartbeat, Jaime has rounded the table to sit beside her and pull her hand into his lap. He wants her _on_ him, kissing him, touching him, riding him.

“Don’t be reckless,” she chastises, eyes darting to the door.

He’s harsh, frantic. “I’m tired of waiting—"

“So am I, but—"

He cups her face in his hand and silences her with a kiss.

Her lips yield for a breathless second before she pulls away, trembling. “Are you mad?" Slides a plate of fruit toward him. “Pretend you’re choosing one—”

He pushes the plate away and grabs her hand again, pressing her knuckles to his mouth, dropping heated kisses along her wrist, her arm, higher and higher, then across her bare collarbone. “These are all the peaches I need,” he says, squeezing her breast with his hand. His other hand snakes up her skirts, between her thighs, brushing soft as a whisper against her core before he dares to slide his fingertip inside her. “And here’s my plum…”

“Stop it,” she moans, but the words have no bite to them; they’re a reflex, not a command.

“Why?” he says. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, but—”

He pushes his finger deeper, his heart pounding at how sleek and unresisting she is for him. Glides his finger out and repeats the movement, in and out, again and again—then out and _up_ , spreading her liquid heat around her tender nub in soft, slow circles.

Cersei’s gaze is murderous. She bites her lip, runs her tongue along her teeth. The king could return any minute, any second—Jaime knows this, of course, just as he knows he can’t stop, even if he wanted to.

“Did you mean it, what you said?” she asks, tilting her head and catching him off guard.

“Did I mean what?” He’s confused, goes still.

“That you’ll give me a baby,” she says quietly, her eyes never leaving his.

“Yes.”

She shoves him away in a sudden motion. Stands and moves behind him so he can’t try anything further without having to be obvious about it. Even Jaime knows he can’t be obvious, not anymore, not at this late moment, not tonight.

She drags her fingers through his hair, gripping tight and yanking his head back so she can speak into his ear. “We’re about to have the entire week to ourselves, you fool,” she hisses. “Don’t ruin it.”

Her tongue traces the shell of his ear in revenge. He raises his glossy finger to his mouth and sucks her essence away. _Better than any fruit._

“What do I need to do?” he asks.

*

With the door slightly ajar, Jaime can hear Pycelle explain to Robert why Cersei ought to stay in King’s Landing during the tournament. It was ridiculously easy to threaten him. He blustered at first, indignant, before declaring it was close enough to the truth to make no difference.

“The queen is too frail for travel, but her body continues to make a full recovery. She’s had her moon’s blood and has indicated she will return to the marital bed upon your arrival back. There should be no difficulty in a second pregnancy.”

“So be it,” Robert answers carelessly.

Pycelle exits, passing Jaime at his post outside the king’s chamber. Jaime stares straight ahead, a bored expression on his face. Inside, he’s full of turmoil. Disbelief. Staggering, all-consuming lust.

Her servants are gone. The entire Kingsguard, save Jaime, is gone. The king himself is about to be a hundred leagues away. _No one to disturb us, no one to bother us or notice us. Not a single watchful eye upon us._

The facts are this: They have five days of endless fucking ahead of them, and for precisely none of them will he have to leave her body when he comes.

*

“I’m going to have you against every surface in every empty room we can find,” he tells her, “until there isn’t a single corner of the Red Keep you can go where you won’t be reminded of me, of _us,_ of _this_ —”

She’s flat on her back on the small council table, Jaime above her, her idea, because Jaime “promised it to her,” but also because it’s the table Father used as Hand, and what better way for them to stick it to Tywin Lannister—who told them to do whatever it takes, and oh, how they are, how they _are_ , Father—Jaime’s face buried against her neck, her wrists captured above her head, his hips slamming faster and faster until he can no longer hold back.

“I’m going to--” he groans.

“Don’t move,” she orders him, because she may be underneath him, pinned in place as he surges inside her, but she’s still the one in charge and they both know it. “Don’t _move_ , Jaime…”

It’s new, staying inside her instead of pulling out and spilling on her skin, but he’s a fast, eager learner.

“A woman’s pleasure makes for better babies,” she announces once he’s filled her belly and they’re catching their breath, side by side, fingers touching.

He barks out a laugh before he realizes she’s serious.

“What?” she says, affronted. “It’s true.”

How very like Cersei to claim her orgasm is a necessary component of becoming pregnant. He always tries his best to keep her happy in that regard, but it’s not always possible. Besides, she can have more than one in a row, and he can’t, so he thinks it evens out in the end.

“Are you _pouting_?” he teases, turning sideways and letting his finger drift over her bottom lip. “Have I ever left you wanting?”

“Well,” she huffs. “Let me see, once or twice, or _ten times_ —”

“Only because we were about to get caught!” He laughs again, not to make light of her, but because _he_ feels so light—have they ever been so carefree? He never wants it to end.

“Are you feeling neglected?” he teases, moving down her body, spreading her thighs and burying his face in the best home he’s ever known.

“I’m spoiled now, you know,” he tells her, after she’s spent herself feverishly against his mouth, her cries still echoing in his ears. “I’ll never want to go back to the other way.” The taste of her and him and _them_ coats his lips and chin in a decadent sheen.

“You’ll never have to,” she says around a contented sigh, her eyes closed.

He rests his head on her stomach and she caresses his hair, sweaty and matted to his forehead. “It still seems unreal.”

“After the first two dozen times you’ll get used to it,” she says. “You won’t even think of leaving, it’ll be natural to spill inside me.”

His eyes roll back at the thought. “Two dozen?” he repeats. “You really think we can keep this up four or five times a _day_?”

A squeak-laugh from her, tickling his ear. “You’re right, _three_ dozen to be on the safe side.”

“Safe? We’ll never be safe again,” he reminds her. “Not after this.”

She opens her eyes, undeterred, and pushes his face down toward her cunt again. “Of all the things you could be doing with your mouth, talking is the one I’m least interested in.”

*

“A practical question, sweet sister, if we’re still entertaining those. Who will be feeding you, bathing you, and braiding your hair?”

“Who,” she says, a sly smile gracing her lips, “do you _think_?”

Since it’s temporary, and all three activities are preceded and followed by sex, he finds he doesn’t mind his new duties. Of course, more than three-quarters of the bathwater ends up on the floor, splashing out in great rhythmic waves when they’re doing what they do in it; feeding her pieces of fruit and bread with his fingers coats the sheets with crumbs; and the braid part, well, the less said about that the better.

When he finishes his first attempt, Cersei stands and swivels in front of her looking glass, peering over her shoulder to view the results.

“The gods weep. That… is… the _worst_ braid I’ve ever _seen_ ,” she gasps, peals of laughter filling the room like bells. Tears of mirth tug at the corners of her eyes. He doesn’t think she’s been this entertained in years.

He frowns. “It’s not _that_ bad—”

She’s almost howling. “It’s completely lopsided, uneven, Septa Crane could have done better.”

“The blind one?”

“Yes!”

“Who cares,” he scoffs. “No one’s here to see it.”

“That’s right, because you’re going to do it again,” she says sternly, back to giving orders.

Lightning fast, he twines the braid, rope-like, around his fist.

“I have a better idea,” he tells her. Gives a rough tug with his fist, proving that if he wants to, he can yoke her, steer her, control her, and the soft gasp she makes in response reverberates through his gut, straight to his balls.

“So tight and wet for me,” he groans a minute later, marveling at the way her slick walls clench at him with each thrust. He slides deeper, deep as he can go, his balls pressed tight up against her opening, and gazes at her to see her reaction.

Without breaking eye contact, she bites her bottom lip, wincing.

“Too much?” he asks, easing off.

“No.”

“I’m hurting you,” he insists. “I’m too deep—”

He opens his hand to let her braid fall, and withdraws fractionally, but she stops him, clamping her legs around his lower back and digging her nails into to his biceps, a full-body vise keeping him in place.

“ _No_.” She shakes her head petulantly. Her loosened, wild golden hair swings back and forth. “Never too deep, you can never be too deep. It’s not possible.”

She throws her head back, eyes closed, neck arched and taut, mouth gone slack, the softest whimper of pain or pleasure or both or neither or _everything_ falling from her lips.

They stay that way a long time, with him lodged farther inside her than he ever thought possible, fucking her with movements so incremental he’s not sure he’s even moving, but he must be, because her breath catches in her throat in a rhythm that transfixes him.

“Oh,” she cries, curling inward now, no space at all between them, pressing her cheek against his. “It’s a _sweet_ ache,” she whispers, her lips grazing the shell of his ear. “The sweetest ache there is. Jaime. _Jaime_ …!”

 _So wet, my Cersei,_ he thinks again _, so wet for me._

So wet for _Robert,_ too, he thinks, hating the thought, hating that he can’t escape the specter of the king no matter where they go or what they do.

It’s as though she can hear his thoughts, because she talks him around it, makes everything good for him again. Her words are coaxing, but forceful, too. Possessive.

“My handsome, gallant, _perfect_ brother… no one better, no one else I want, no one…”

He comes so hard that time stops, and he forgets to breathe. It feels as though his heart stops, too, the pulsing of his cock mimicking what his heart should be doing to keep him alive. His entire being feels balanced on the edge of a precipice, the realization that his existence may be centered on this exact moment, pleasure coursing and rupturing out of his body and into hers, until he almost buckles with the weight of it. He feels her hand on his forehead, his hair, and suddenly he’s jolted back to life, erratic breaths and frantic gulps of air filling his lungs to replace the ones he’s lost, the ones he gave her.

“Your heart,” Cersei says, her fingers splayed there, “It’s pounding…”

“I need a minute,” he admits. They disentangle. Cersei pours him a goblet of water, serving _him_ for once.

“I thought you were about to faint,” she remarks, not unkindly.

He puffs out a breath of air, light-headed and dizzy. “I almost did.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking, ‘Three dozen times? My cock will fall off.’ ”

Her tongue traces her top lip. “I’ll ice it for you.”

“Then it'll turn blue.”

“I’ll warm it for you. One or two more times tonight, I should think,” she exclaims, perfectly serious.

“I’m not sure you understand,” he tells her. “I _emptied_ my balls just now. You’ve drained me completely.”

She’s undeterred. “Hmm. And what would it take to…replenish the larder?”

He blows out another puff of air. Swallows a gulp of water. Rests against the headboard, his chest still rising and falling from the force of their coupling.

“Well?” she prompts.

“You on all fours, touching yourself, doing exactly as I tell you.”

She looks startled. “That’s… specific. How long have you wanted to say that to me?”

 _My whole fucking life_ , he thinks. “Ever since you became queen,” he admits.

“Is this how it would be, then, if you were king?” she purrs. “Me on all fours, touching myself, doing exactly as you tell me?”

He nods. Places his arms lazily behind his head and settles in to watch the show.

An hour later, maybe two, they’re surprised to see the sun’s gone down. Cersei’s hair is a mess from her most recent exertions. Her skin glows. He wonders who received more satisfaction from his instructions to her. Her breasts are beaded with sweat, she’s golden and debauched and gloriously, gloriously his.

She places his hands in her tangled tresses and says, “You messed it up, you have to fix it.” He must look dubious at the prospect because she laughs again. “You can’t be good at _everything_ , you know. That would hardly be fair.”

His chest swells with pride. “You think I’m good at everything?”

“You’d make a better king, I know that. You’re worth a hundred Roberts.”

“Five hundred,” he corrects her.

“A thousand,” she counters.

“As are you,” he tells her. “You know that, right?”

She smiles. “I have occasionally suspected.”

They nap together, dream together. He aches in places he didn’t know could ache, but she’s right, it’s the sweetest ache there is.

“You know when I miss you the most?” she says. “When you’re standing guard on one side of the door, and I’m on the other side, and we can’t speak or see each other, but I know you’re there.”

“I was so worried I’d lose you, that I’d never hear you laugh again, smile again,” Jaime tells her.

“I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. No matter how much Robert wishes I would.”

“I don’t want to talk about the king.”

“He’s tired of me. He’s been tired of me ever since the first time I opened my mouth and _didn’t_ put his cock in it.”

“ _I don’t want to talk about the king_ —”

“And I don’t want to be married to him!” she cries, rising off the bed. “Which of us has it worse?”

“Come back,” he sighs, reaching for her.

She slips on a robe, leaves the room.

He lets her go, his thoughts uncharacteristically dark.

Why are they doing this? Why has he agreed to this _insane_ plot? What is he possibly going to get out of it?

It seems petty (because it _is_ petty, he knows) to admit how jealous he’d been of the little black-haired whelp for monopolizing Cersei’s time, Cersei’s body, Cersei’s attention. He felt very little when it died, except in regard to how it affected Cersei. Maybe he won’t be so callous toward a child that’s his, but somehow, he doubts it. This baby, if it comes (gods! what if it’s twins?) will not only steal Cersei’s love, it’ll be yet another thing he doesn’t get credit for.

He finds her in her solar, sipping wine, and staring into the distance.

“Come riding with me tomorrow,” he says. “A short ride, just us.”

He knows she won’t say yes. She’s too vexed with him now, she’ll want to punish him by denying him her company. She’ll beg off, refer to all the duties she’s neglected, etc.

“Alright,” she says.

*

The smell of the horse stable is so familiar, it makes his breath catch. The straw, the animals, the wood, the leather. It’s the sort of place they _usually_ have sex, down in the muck, a hidden place, never removing their clothes, never taking their time. Desperate kisses, a lifted skirt and unlaced breeches, a tear, a rip, a breast exposed, the slap of flesh on flesh, the fear of being caught always, always nipping at their heels. As fun as it’s been to play at king and queen, to play come into my castle, to feel invincible, _this_ is where they live.

This is where they’ll return.

Everything else is a ruse, an illusion. She’s the sword poised over his throat while he sleeps, the empty noose waiting for his neck.

She’s always had power over him in this regard; if they’re caught mid-fuck she can claim rape (she says she never would, but it’s there—the possibility, the option—an option not available to him). It’s not such a leap in terms of public opinion. Why wouldn’t the Kingslayer also violate his sister?

She trots her horse ahead of his, throws a smile his way, daring him to catch up, to race her, to surpass her.

For a split-second he lets himself imagine what it would be like to father a baby girl. Beautiful, like Cersei, with Cersei’s smile, and long blonde hair, and mischievous emerald eyes. What it would be like to teach that little girl how to ride a horse. Or a son! He could joust with him, teach him how to core an apple with his knife, how to jump off the cliffs at Casterly Rock.

Just as quickly, he pushes the thought away, pushes it down deep, some place where it can’t hurt him. Those thoughts will do neither of them any good.

*

Robert will be home tomorrow; their week together will end. They can never refer to it, never acknowledge it, except in the secret corners of their hearts. 

His lips tug at her nipple, his thumb and forefinger pebbling the other, not rough, but not gentle, either, and she cries out in shock. He eases off, using only his tongue now, cool as a breeze.

“You’re more sensitive than you used to be,” he says.

“Yes.”

“I’ll remember that,” he promises. “Do you want my hands?”

She nods and they shift their positioning. He sits up against the headboard, long legs stretched out in front of him on the bed. She moves so they’re facing away from each other, her back flush against his front. His cock is inside her from behind, and he wraps his arms around her waist until she’s ready to begin.

She told him once she doesn’t feel complete unless he’s inside her. She also confessed it’s his hands she finds the most arousing. Larger than hers, stronger than hers, thicker than hers, capable of swinging swords and throwing daggers and splitting targets with an axe or an arrow, yet still slender and artistic, callused, proportioned, they’re the perfect encapsulation of the two of them. And when he’s touching her from this angle, her body inlaid over his, tucked beneath him, both of them looking in the same direction, she can pretend his hands are hers, cupping her breasts, trailing along her stomach, her hips, her thighs, she can look down her own body and pretend they belong to her. She can move them over her skin exactly the way she’d like, rest her smaller, thinner, softer hands on top of his and guide him to circle his palm over her clit in the most exquisite, torturous way.

It seems perfectly natural to him, that she uses his hands this way.

“I’m going to,” she says urgently, the way Jaime always does, because right now she is Jaime.

“Stay,” he tells her, the words she used on him before, when spilling his seed inside her was new and different. Because right now he is Cersei. “Don’t move, don’t move." 

She comes into his palm, sobbing, shattered, undone, her entire body trembling in release. But that doesn’t mean she’s finished. It takes time for her to unravel completely, and it can’t be rushed. Emotions wrack through her, and she finally allows herself to feel everything she couldn’t before, everything she wouldn’t _let_ herself feel, because starvation and dreamwine and milk of the poppy saved her from having to feel it. She cries in his arms, rages and shakes against the unfairness of it all, what he thinks must feel to her like the unending frustration of being Cersei and not Jaime, forced to marry and live out an alliance set up by their father, instead of forming her own happiness, her own plans, her own freedom, her own place of rule.

“I’m here, I’ve got you,” he says, rocking her up and down his hard, slippery length so he can join her in release. “I’m here.”

Her tears drip onto his arms and he welcomes them, welcomes their shared heat, their shared anguish. When he spills his seed this time, he thinks for certain this is the one that will get her pregnant; when she was him and he was her.

In the bath this time, it’s Cersei who washes him, Cersei who cleans and soothes him. He’s never had a more thorough seeing-to, which is why he’s not surprised when it leads to bad news.

“We can’t meet for a long time,” she tells him, squeezing out the sponge, not looking at him. “We were careless, before. The servants...”

“How long?” he says, quietly. 

She thinks. “Not until I begin to show.”

“How will we know the baby is mine?”

“We’ve had a week’s head-start, and I don’t plan to have sex with him if I can help it. He need only _think_ we’ve been together.”

“How does that—”

“If he’s drunk enough, he won’t know the difference.”

“It’s alright,” he tells her. He kisses her lips, her nose, her cheeks, her forehead. “It’s done.”

She shakes her head. “It’s never over. It’s never done. But we move on, don’t we?”

“We move on,” he agrees.

She caresses his cheek and he does the same to her, their movements effortlessly synchronized, no words needed, a simultaneous benediction, a thumb to the bottom lip, leaning in, one last kiss, foreheads pressed against each other’s like children sharing secrets.

“This is _our_ world now, not his, not theirs, not anyone else’s,” Jaime says, his hand warm against her belly. His other hand moves to the back of her neck, his thumb circling the bones at the top of her spine. “Say it.”

“Ours, only ours,” Cersei agrees, lifting her chin, meaning it.

“You’re forgetting something important,” she says, once they’re out of the bath, dried, and clothed.

“What’s that?”

“At least my hair will be respectable again.” 

He wishes other people could see how funny she is sometimes, how sharp witted. It’s a shame she doesn’t get along with Tyrion, who might appreciate the things she comes up with, and vice versa.

“If they find out, they’ll kill us.” As though it needs saying. As though she needs reminding.

“Yes,” she replies.

As though it’s as simple as that.

Then again, perhaps it is.

Either their child will grow up to rule the seven kingdoms, or their theft of Robert’s heirs will be discovered, and they’ll die together, as one.

No thought has ever given him greater joy.

fin.


End file.
